Good point, Wally.
As a builder, I want my tuner to be as precise as possible to make sure that my instrument is as precise as possible. If the tuner is off, then the bridge will be off, and the frets will be off and the whole instrument will have a compounding error. 
If I were to place my bridge using a tuner that considers 9 cents sharp to be "in the green." and then also tuned my string 9 cents sharp, that could lead to terrible intonation near the end of the second octave.

I also think that our pitch perception is only as precise as the data we give it, so it's just good practice to get as close as I can, unless I have some reason not to.

Well said Wally, well said.

As to the old saying however.....

Actually........                        Rocket Propulsion Altitude/Ambient Pressure Adjustment • Can use variable frequency expansion ratio nozzles -extendable, two-step nozzles e.g., RL-10B-2 on Delta IV 2nd stage..............

Why are you worried about tuner precision? Electronic turners are great for many reasons, including letting folks "tune up" backstage to the same note, instead of devoting a minute or so of on-stage time, but in my opinion, a few cents difference doesn't really matter.

In the real world when you take your dulcimer out of its case and try a tune it may sound fine, but the happy person next to you sounds out-of-tune. You get out your tuning meter and find you are a bit off because your strings are at a different temperature than they were the last time you played. In the old days, you would have said to the leader "Play me a D," and tuned to that, the group being more important than you.

Tune your middle A string as precisely as possible (in the green) and then test the tuning when you finger at frets, 3, 7, and 10. On many, perhaps most, dulcimers you will find you are a few cents sharp, but when you play music it sounds fine.

If you put your finger on the string and check the tuning, you may even find that it makes a difference where and how you place your finger.

On large organs, pairs of pipes are tuned with one a few cents sharp to produce a voice called Celeste, or a few cents flat to produce a voice called Humana. Slight dissonances make music more interesting.

As the old saying goes, "This ain't rocket science."

I use the D'addario Nexxus 360.  The display is very clear and can be read in any lighting conditions unlike others that i have used in the past. As for comparative accuracy I don't know where it sits, but it's quite good enough for my use.

 

In general, a phone app on a modern smartphone will typically be much more precise than a clip on tuner, as the microphone quality of smartphones is higher than that of clip on tuners. One big downside to using your phone is that it picks up all background noise as well. I use an app for android called soundcorset and it works perfectly for me. Another cool thing about soundcorset is that you can adjust the pitch standard to things other than A440, which can be fun to mess around with.

I have had a couple snarks, as well as some other clip on tuners and I think they work great.  Tuners that clip onto the headstock are really convenient because they don't pick up much ambient noise, plus theyre very portable and simple. My only problem is that I always end up losing them my favorite was a cheap violin tuner that showed which octave you are in and how many cents off you are. I wish I could say what brand it was, but I've misplaced it lol.

Like Dusty said, just about any tuner will do the job. I really like the convenience of using my phone, but it doesnt work as well if there's a lot of wind or background noise.

A while ago I compared several different tuners and found that the cheap generic ones that came for free with instruments I've bought are frequently off by a few cents. Even that really shouldn't matter though.

updated by @nate: 12/30/24 10:37:22PM

Hi John.  I think there are a few different issues with tuners.  One is the accuracy of the gizmo inside.  My guess is that all of the common tuners are more accurate than our ears are.  However, a second issue is how information is presented to you. One tuner, for example, might have 5 lights in between a C# and a D.  But another tuner might have 10 lights in between those tones.  So mathematically, the one with 10 lights will be able to display the tone twice as accurately.  That means what your Snark considers "in tune" might be twice the range of another tuner, making it less accurate functionally.

If you poke around the internet, you will generally be told that the most accurate tuners are the strobe tuners.  Second are those needle tuners (which is probably what your app is).  The best small strobe tuners are made by Peterson.  The original was the Peterson Strobo Clip, but that is pretty big. I actually have one for sale in the For Sale Forum .  Then Peterson came out with a smaller version, the Strobo Clip HD .  The smaller one is slightly less accurate but is much easier to read.  I also have one of those.

But I personally think the best tuner out there in terms of accuracy and display is TC Electronic's UniTune Clip On .  It is not as flexible as the Snark, but its display is much more accurate.  It's hard to describe why that's the case, but basically there are two sets of lights to follow. One is probably about as accurate as the Snark, but then there is another fine tuner set of lights to get you even closer.

For guitarists, TC Electronic also makes a PolyTune tuner that can assess all your strings at once. It's pretty wild. I have one of those on one of my guitars, but to be honest, I think the UniTune is all that anyone should need.

It's also worth mentioning that I use several of the D'Addario tuners, both the headstock tuners and the violin tuners , the latter of which can straddle the dulcimer fretboard. Both of those have a lower profile than the Snark, Peterson, and UniTune, but they are probably no more accurate than the Snark.  They're just small. You can probably see one next to the nut on most of the videos I've posted.

--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

Tuners Hi kids, I hope everybody is doing well and had a good Christmas. I have a question about tuners and what your experience is with the one that you have, or the one that you can recommend. I have the Snark tuner, mainly because I don't know any better. It seems to work okay I guess.  But If I compare it to the one I downloaded on my phone the phone app says that I'm a little flat compared to the Snark. I have heard that the Peterson strobe Is a better unit what is your opinion out there. THANKS